Mehmet Oz has inherited the book-selling mantle of his TV benefactor, Oprah Winfrey. (Associated Press)
Any author worth his or her advance — if they’re lucky enough to get one — knows that the best way to publicize their book is via television, which reaches a large audience in one fell swoop.
To whit, the folks at “Dr. Oz” have compiled a list of Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s recent visits to Mehmet Oz’s daytime talk show — and how these visits successfully impacted sales of his various books.
For example, Fuhrman was on “Dr. Oz” last Wednesday, March 13, to talk about his newest book, “Super Immunity.” In the 24 hours following his appearance on the show, “Super Immunity” rose from #379 on amazon.com all to way up to #2 (that’s a nearly 19,000 percent boost in sales, if you’re keeping score at home).
In January, when Fuhrman visited “Dr. Oz” to promote two books, “Eat To Live” and “The End of Diabetes,” sales of both of those tomes went through the roof — rising on amazon.com to #4 and #113, respectively — representing sales spikes of 900 and 383 percent.
The other other books Fuhrman has touted on “Dr. Oz” — including “Eat for Health” and “Nutritarian Handbook” — have also seen post-“Oz” sales spikes on amazon.com.
This being daytime TV, the competition is fierce. So, of course, the “Dr. Oz” folks also compared their authors — and subsequent online sales of their books after appearing on the show— to authors who appeared on timeslot competitor “Katie” in the months of January and February. Both shows air at 3 p.m. in New York
According to “Oz,” 12 out of the 18 books featured on their show were in the top 20 on amazon’s “Movers & Shakers” following the broadcast — compared to only three out of 18 which made the “Movers & Shakers” list following an author’s appearance on “Katie.”
In other daytime talk show news, “The Wendy Williams Show” has added two more months of original episodes (taping in June and July) due to the show’s strong ratings during February sweeps.
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TV One has given the go-ahead for a second season of “The Rickey Smiley Show,” which premiered last summer.
Over its first season, “Smiley” averaged 486,000 viewers — which was up a whopping 169 percent to what aired in its timeslot the previous year (“Martin” and “The Tracy Morgan Show”). The sitcom’s second season is slated to begin production next month, with the 26-episode season premiering this summer.
Smiley’s co-stars include Ray J, Roz Ryan, J Anthony Brown, Jay Lewis, Noree Victoria and Demetria McKinney.
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The Online Network, which will stream the new versions of “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” starting April 29, yesterday released a few morsels of new information pertaining to both soaps.
To whit: the premiere episode of “AMC” will be set “approximately five years later” from the time the last episode aired on ABC (September 2011), while “OLTL” will chronologically from its last episode on ABC (January 2012).
Yeah, I didn’t think it was a big deal, either, but fans of both shows might be interested.
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Last, but not least:
* Tonight at 10 on BET
: The season finale of “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” hosted by Nick Cannon . . . The fourth season of “George to the Rescue” (George Oliphant) premieres this Saturday (10 a.m.) on Ch. 4. . . The “Rockin’ Rabbis” (Philip Weintraub, Jeffrey Abraham and student rabbi Eve Eichenholtz) will compete on the March 21 episode of GSN’s “The American Bible Challenge” to benefit the UJA-Federation of New York’s Hurricane Sandy Fund.